Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Time to cool hype of Embiid as world beater
PHILADELPHIA » Joel Embiid is 28 years old and is about to be a ninth-year pro with unreliable knees, a couple of compromised orbital bones, a back that has bothered him since college and plenty to say.
He was the center who embraced the sales pitch that he was about to be the next Hakeem Olajuwon when he was just 20 years old.
He was the early-career bully who enjoyed tormenting opposing centers, and in particular Andre Drummond, saying he owns substantial real estate in his head.
He is the player who cannot bring his team out of the second round of the playoffs, yet who casually and confidently makes public plans to dominate — his word — pro basketball.
He has never been elected as the best player in the NBA, yet has an obnoxious, unprofessional game-day staff encouraging MVP chants.
When he has been healthy, he has been the most talented player, skill for skill, ever to earn money from the Sixers. He should have been the MVP this season, but lost to Nikola Jokic in a race too close to declare crooked.
But he is rarely healthy when it matters, often sags in the postseason and is closer to being caught from behind by younger centers than he is of overtaking some older players on the list of the NBA’s best. The Sixers just lost in the second round of the playoffs to the Miami Heat, failing to reach their first conference final since 2001. Embiid was of some help, but not enough. With that, the hired screamers had two choices. They could acknowledge that. Or they could crinkle a yellowed script and recite the lines. Doc Rivers, if you please … “I love coaching him,” the Sixers’ coach said. “I love what he’s about. I love watching him grow up. He’s still young and I don’t think we understand how young Joel is. We focus on how good he is and we forget about his age.”
Young? Miami’s Bam Adebayo, 24 and in his fifth NBA season, is young. And through